“Inside the Belly” by Tom C. Hunley

240 Replies

Scotch Tape World

When the light strikes your face
at just the right angle, I can almost
see our future, all bright
and shiny in your eyes
is something I heard Mike say
five times in the same evening
to different women with the same
results, is the first verse of a song
I heard on my car stereo
in a dream I was having about
a road trip past the cornfields
of Indiana. I don’t know
anyone named Mike, but I hope
he finally made it, found happiness,
grew into his body, which was clumsy
and slow like a John Deere tractor
bringing traffic to a grinding halt
is the beginning of a story I never
finished reading. Do you believe
there are angels whose whole job
is to salvage all the fragments,
all our half-finished efforts?
Where was I? Oh right, Indiana.
It swallowed me up because I said
I’ll be damned before I move to Kentucky
is something I heard a preacher say
while he lassoed a snake above his head.
Something I ate had poisoned me.
I was starting to feel it. My stomach
testified, and a perfumed woman in
a large straw hat shouted Amen.

–Tom C. Hunley,
Scotch Tape World
Accents Publishing

Tom Hunley

Tom C. Hunley is an associate professor of English at Western Kentucky University and the director of Steel Toe Books. Among his previous books are The Poetry Gymnasium (McFarland & Company, Inc., 2012); Annoyed Grunt (Imaginary Friend Press, 2012); Greatest Hits (Pudding House, 2010, Gold Invitational Series); Octopus (Logan House, 2008, Winner of the Holland Prize); Teaching Poetry Writing: A Five-Canon Approach (Multilingual Matters LTD., 2007, New Writing Viewpoints Series); My Life as a Minor Character (Pecan Grove, 2005, winner of a national chapbook contest); Still, There’s a Glimmer (WordTech Editions, 2004); and The Tongue (Wind Publications, 2004). He divides his time between Kansas and Oz.

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